AI & Automation · Operational intelligence
Kerning AI
Industry 5.0, on the floor.
An operational intelligence platform for industries that build with their hands — an ontology-led approach to Industry 5.0, retuned for the Indian floor.
01 · Ontology
One model of the operation.
Equipment, recipes, people, suppliers, regulations — fused into a single object graph the whole company can reason on. The leverage point in a real-world operation, rebuilt for the Indian floor.
02 · Agents
Reasoning, not reporting.
Agentic workflows on the ontology that act, not just alert. Predictive maintenance, energy optimisation, compliance closure, plate-level P&L — humans approve, the agent does the work.
03 · Human-centric
Industry 5.0, by design.
Built to work alongside the operator, not over them. Multilingual, sovereign-deployable, audit-trailed by default. The line lead's tacit knowledge is a first-class data source — not a target.
Positioning
An operational intelligence platform for industries that build with their hands.
Kerning AI is an operational intelligence platform for industries that build with their hands — kitchens, factories, hotel floors, automotive lines. It fuses sensors, machine telemetry, ERP and human input into a single living model of the operation, then runs agentic workflows on top: predictive maintenance, energy and utility optimisation, hygiene and compliance, decision-grade analytics. Built on an ontology layer rather than a dashboard — and tuned for Industry 5.0, where software works alongside the operators, not over them.
Approach
Kerning AI is a horizontal operational-intelligence platform built for industries that make things in the physical world — kitchens, factories, hotel floors, automotive cells. Founded in 2021, the company runs on a single thesis: that the leverage point in a real-world operation isn't a chatbot or a dashboard — it's an ontology. A single, governed, living model of the operation, fused from every sensor, every ERP row and every shift-handover note, on top of which agents and humans can reason about the same reality. It's the same idea that has lifted the world's most consequential industrial software a decade ahead of its peers; we're rebuilding it for the floors that have been left behind.
We started inside our own works, because Hemco was the first customer with the problem in volume — hundreds of commercial kitchens in service, equipment failing silently, power being paid for and not produced, compliance lapses caught in the audit instead of the moment. We built the ontology, layered the agents on top, and shipped it. Operators we knew asked for it; manufacturers we'd never met asked for it; now Kerning AI is the operating intelligence under hospitality groups, manufacturers, and institutional F&B operators across India, the EU and the UK.
What we are building is Industry 5.0 software, not Industry 4.0 software. Industry 4.0 was about automation — sensors, robots, machines wired together to remove the human. Industry 5.0 puts the human back: the chef, the line lead, the maintenance engineer, the brigade trainer, the CFO. Our agents work alongside them, with full audit trails of every decision, instead of against them. The platform is multilingual by default, runs sovereign-deployed where the customer needs it, and treats the front-line operator's tacit knowledge as a first-class data source — not as a target to be optimised away.
“Industry 5.0, on the floor.”
Capabilities
What Kerning AI does.
- 01
Operational ontology
A living model of the operation — equipment, lines, recipes, people, vendors, regulations — fused from sensors, machine telemetry, ERP, BMS, POS, HR and the operator's own voice. Not a dashboard. An object graph the whole company can reason on.
- 02
Agentic workflows
Reasoning agents that act on the ontology — flag a failing combi oven before service, re-route a chiller load when grid tariffs spike, draft an FSMS variance back to the QA lead. Humans approve; the agent does the boring work.
- 03
Predictive maintenance
Industrial-grade telemetry on assets running sixteen-hour shifts. Bearings, compressors, hoods, robotic cells — failure modes called weeks before service stops.
- 04
Energy, utility & emissions
Real-time tracking of power, gas, water, refrigerant — with automated tariff optimisation, scope-2 carbon ledgering, and bill-reduction targets the CFO can audit.
- 05
Hygiene, safety & compliance
Digital audits, temperature logs, FSMS / ISO / GMP workflows — replacing the clipboard with a tablet that knows what to ask, when to escalate, and how to close the loop.
- 06
Decision intelligence
Plate-level P&L, line-level efficiency, brigade-level performance — modelled on the ontology, served as decisions rather than reports.
What 5.0 means here
Six commitments of the platform.
Industry 5.0 is not a marketing slogan; it is a working contract. These are the six commitments Kerning AI makes to every customer's floor, every audit, and every front-line operator who has to live with the software we ship.
- 01
Human-in-the-loop
Agents propose; humans dispose. Every consequential action is approved by a named person, with a recorded reason, traceable later in the audit.
- 02
Augment, don't replace
We automate the boring work — clipboard logs, manual reads, paperwork — so the work that requires a human can keep its human.
- 03
Sovereign by default
Customer data resides in the customer's jurisdiction. Air-gapped, on-prem, or sovereign-cloud installations available without a sales-engineering call.
- 04
Resilient operations
The platform degrades gracefully — losing a sensor, a model, or an internet link doesn't stop the line. The operator's clipboard keeps working.
- 05
Sustainable as standard
Energy, water, gas and refrigerant are first-class signals — not a CSR-team add-on. Scope-2 carbon ledgering ships in the base product.
- 06
Multilingual on the floor
The line lead reads Hindi, the chef reads Tamil, the CFO reads English. The platform speaks all of them — and the language a workflow runs in is the operator's choice, not ours.
Direct
For specifications, partnership enquiries, or to commission a project — write to us.
hello@hemcogroup.com